CATCH ON A FEEDER ALL DAY

How a simple approach won with a one-line attack at Barston Lakes

ASK most top feeder anglers how they get the best out of their pegs and they’ll tell you to have two or three different spots to fish that will allow you to chop and change to keep the fish coming. But that’s not how Nathan Gooderham played it to top the latest Golden Rod Champs qualifier.

Held on West Midlands water Barston Lakes, Woodbridge-based Nathan kept things simple for his 77-0-0 bag of carp, F1s and skimmers. He fished just one area at 42m range to win the match and book his shot at winning the £10,000 top prize in a few weeks’ time.

Drawing peg 60 on the river bank of the Main Lake, Nathan’s mind was made up in

terms of where to cast after he saw a few carp topping at 40m while setting up. The decision to put all his eggs in one basket was rewarded with a fish on his first cast followed by plenty of line bites to show the carp and F1s were sat there waiting.

“The area I drew had won a match the week before, but when I’ve been to Barston in the past, it’s never been that good, so I was unsure as to how good my chances were,” Nathan explains.

“Seeing those fish show at the start was reassuring so my plan was to cast to them and take it from there, with a view to following them further out into the lake if they moved off. Fortunately, they didn’t, and I had no need to change a thing.

“Bite times were between eight and 12 minutes after casting so if I hadn’t caught after 15 minutes, I wound in and cast out again using micro pellets on a mini Hybrid feeder and swapping between a 6mm BaitTech yellow or pink wafter.”